AMERICAN RED CROSS OPENS LARGE SHELTER IN HOUSTON TO HOUSE EVACUEES RETURNING BY BUS
September 23, 2008 -- A former Auchan superstore is a Houston Red Cross shelter for returning evacuees who were bused to other Texas cities before Hurricane Ike hit. Many of these residents can't return to their homes because their homes were severely damaged or destroyed in the storm.
Before Ike made landfall, evacuees from coastal areas were bused to state Shelter Hubs in cities such as Austin and Dallas. This shelter is being used exclusively for residents moving out of the George R. Brown Convention Center Shelter and for these Houston area coastal residents being brought back here by bus. The shelter is located at 6059 South Loop East, Houston, TX 77087.
Residents needing shelter, who evacuated on their own, are strongly encouraged to choose from other Red Cross shelters located throughout the greater Houston area.
The Red Cross is identifying additional shelter locations because more evacuees will be bussed back into Houston in the next few days.
For current Shelter List information go to www.houstonredcross.org and 1-800 RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767). In addition 6 Red Cross and Southern Baptist Kitchens in Southeast Texas have been providing between 20,000-50,000 meals twice-daily. These kitchens have been providing meals for Red Cross Shelters, Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicles (ERV's) distributing food to families in damaged neighborhood and providing drive-up meals from the Baytown kitchen location.
Also, Red Cross damage assessment teams, going street to street, have determined more than 16,572 homes in Harris and Galveston counties, so far have been damaged, including 1,533 destroyed and 3,450 with major damage.
Red Cross Teams continue to assess damage in 26 area counties including teams dispatched today from the Houston area to access damage in Chambers, Liberty and Polk counties.
You can help the victims of thousands of disasters across the country each year, disasters like the Hurricanes of 2008,by making a financial gift to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. You can log-on to www.redcross.org or call 1-800-RED-CROSS (1-800-733-2767) or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish) to make a donation. You can also use your cell phone to donate $5 to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund by text messaging they keyword "GIVE" to "2HELP" (24357). You can send multiple donations depending on your carrier. Contributions will appear on monthly bills or be debited from a pre-paid account balance. All applicable text rates apply.
